"I Killed President McKinley because I done my duty. I didn't believe one Man should have so much service and another man should have none."

The public so hated this man for what he did to the beloved President that a general mood of depression persisted throughout the country. All of Czolgosz's worldly possessions were burned and sulfuric acid was dumped into his casket.

This confession, hidden in the office of his attorney, was perhaps the only artifact of the assassination, touched by the assassin, that survives.

Henry Wirz - (October 29, 1865)

Commandant of Andersonville Prison

where many Union soldiers were to die from neglect and abuse. Wirz was tried at the end of the war and was the only Confederate to be hung for war crimes. His guilt remains a subject for conjecture to this day.

"You say that I am one of the greatest criminal(s) that ever lived ...worthy of capital punishment, you exhort me to give up all hope of escape from a murderer's doom, and not try any longer to hide ... my guilt, but to confess openly like a man.

You are greatly mistaken ... I am not a criminal ... my hands were never stained with the blood of my fellow man ... I have no guilt to hide ... nothing to confess ... I am innocent."

Galileo Galilei - (May 9, 1637)

Italian Mathematician, Astronomer, Physicist

This letter, marking The Birth of the Science of Mechanics is dated, and discusses the preparation of the diagrams for the Discorsi e Dimostrazioni Matematiche intorno a due nuove scienze...(Dialogue on Two New Sciences,). It was written while under house arrest in his own villa, charged with believing that the earth was not the center of the universe. He was, however, allowed to continue his scientific writings. This letter is one of the last written by Galileo before he became completely blind.

Charles Guiteau - His Confession

Assassin of President Garfield (July 18, 1881)

"I put away all resentments and did my duty to God and the American people....."

"Not a soul in the universe knew of my purpose to remove the President. It was my own conception and execution and whether right or wrong I take the entire responsibility of it."

It is interesting to note the similarity between this confession and that of the assassin of President McKinley: Both refer to the assassination as doing "my duty" !!

Gandhi - (Dec. 12, 1940)

Non-Violence Philosopher and Leader who gained Indepencdence for India

Gandhi's letters from prison were all censored. They were letters of appreciation for gifts that were sent to him. When free, he wrote of civil disobedience, non-violence and the risk of jail

"If the gentleman you name are spinners & khadi wearers, if they believe in the necessity of communal unity & and removal of untouchability in every shape & form,...if they believe that there is an inevitable connection between these things & non-violence,...if you are satisfied that they conform to all these conditions you may let them court imprisonment. ..."

John Brown - (December 2, 1859)

Abolitionist who attempted to promote a slave rebellion but instead caused a war

"I have only time to give you the names of those that I know were killed of my company at Harpers Ferry or that are said to have been killed: Two Thompsons, Two Browns, J. Anderson, J. H. Kagi, Stewart Taylor, A. Hazlett, W. H. Leeman and Three colored men."

John Brown was vastly more important in the anti-slavery movement than the usual dismissal of him today as an unbalanced fanatic would indicate. He saw more clearly than anyone that slavery could not be eradicated except by violent means! When Federal troops overpowered Brown at Harpers Ferry, several of his prominent supporters scurried to cover their tracks and avoid implication in the conspiracy. The old man's brave behavior and subsequent martyrdom stirred feelings in ordinary people to war level.

The letter was written from jail, just prior to his execution.

Napoleon - (April 27, 1814)

Renounces the Throne

On his defeat in 1814, Napoleon was given the island of Elba to be his new empire over which he would have full sovereignty, plus 2,000,000 francs per year for personal expenses. In addition, he could retain his title of Emperor!! However this was not satisfactory to Napoleon ... and he attempted suicide, but failed. Here, on his was to Elba, he renounces his title as Emperor.

". sacrificing my rights "

"for the good and for the interests of my homeland."

EXCOMMUNICATION OF NAPOLEON

by Pope Pius VII - (July 10, 1809)

The authority of almighty God and of the apostles Peter and Paul ... fallen into excommunication....

... issued after the French attack on the Vatican.

The Pope was arrested and imprisoned by Napoleon (on July 6, 1809) and was not released until Napoleon's fall from power.

While he was still fighting the Austrians the French Emperor felt he could no longer tolerate the lack of support showed by Pope Pius VII and he declared the annexation of Rome to the French Empire. The pope reacted by excommunicating Napoleon. On the night of July 5, 1809 French troops assaulted Palazzo del Quirinale: the papal guards were instructed not to oppose resistance. The pope was arrested and transferred to France: he always refused to officially set his residence in Paris and for many years he lived in Fontainebleau in a condition close to house arrest. The French introduced radical reforms: the Napoleonic Code replaced the papal very messy judicial system; the Italian hour was replaced by the European one and the traditional systems of measurements were replaced by the metric system. The sort of welfare state which existed in Rome and which was based on religious charities was dissolved; conscription was introduced; the education system was entirely redesigned; burial in churches was forbidden.

"In the anguishes in which we are situated, we shed tears of tenderness..."

"Peter was kept in prison, but prayer was made without ceasing of the church unto God for him".

In 1808 Rome was occupied by the French, and on May 17, 1809, Napoleon declared the papal states to be annexed to France. The Papal flag was taken down, and, as a result, Pius VII excommunicated Napoleon. The night of July 5-6, General Radet entered Quirinal and arrested the Pope, giving him two hours to pack; they left at 4:00 a.m.. This letter therefore was written slightly before 4 a.m. on July 6.

Pius was incarcerated at Fontainbleau, remaining there five years until the allied invasion of France in 1814.

Mary Queen of Scots pleads with her brother-in-law, King Henry III of France to intercede with Queen Elizabeth on her behalf in order that she be set free. Henry did. Elizabeth didn't.

Unable to obtain permission for a divorce from the Pope, Henry VIII formed his own "Anglican" Church of England, which would sanction the divorce. This divided England along religious lines. Those supporting the Anglican views included Henry's son the future King Edward VI and daughter, the future Queen Elizabeth I. Those supporting the Catholic views included Henry's daughter the future Queen Mary I (Bloody Mary) and Mary Queen of Scots, the great granddaughter of King Henry VII.

On Henry VIII's death, Edward VI succeeded to the throne. His early demise brought Mary I to power which caused a switch back to Catholicism and much bloodshed resulted. This caused greater antipathy towards Rome and Catholicism so that by the time Mary I died, England was ready to ignore the fact that Elizabeth was illegitimate in the Catholic view, and to pass over the true Catholic heir, Mary Queen of Scots. Indeed, Elizabeth easily seized power and left poor Mary Queen of Scots with only two titles to her name; Queen of Scotland and Queen of France.

Mary Queen of Scots' intrigues in Scotland caused her to seek safety in England, which terrified Elizabeth. Elizabeth confined Mary Queen of Scots under house arrest for almost twenty years, until Elizabeth felt secure enough to cause Mary's execution.

Thomas Wentworth - Earl of Strafford (February 4, 1640)

"Sweet Hartte. It is long since I writt unto you, for I am here in such a trouble as gives me little or noe respett. The charge is now cum inn, and I am now able I prayse god to tell you, that I conceave ther is nothing capitall, and for the rest I knowe at the worste his Maty (Magesty/King Charles I) will pardon all without hurting my fortune, and thenwee shall be happy by gods grace. Therefore comfortt your self for I trust thes cloudes will away, and that wee shall have faire weather afterwardes. Farwell."

One of the saddest events in English history....Strafford was a hardworking, patriotic and honest servant to both his King and to his people. His goal was to satisfy everyone.....but in doing so, one must compromise on each side....and thus make everyone his enemy. He was also the King's greatest supporter and when arrested relied on the King's promise to pardon him of any and all complaints. But the King was shortly convinced that the sacrifice would benefit his position as King.....and ratified Strafford's execution. The mistake was fatal as Charles would soon lose the crown, his life and even the Monarchy. Who knows what would have occurred if his greatest supporter was still at his side?

Sir Walter Raleigh (1552 - 1618) His Final Adventure

also signed by Lady Elizabeth Raleigh, Walter Raleigh Jr.

Upon the death of Queen Elizabeth in 1603, Raleigh was accused of plotting against the new King, James I. He was sentenced to 13 years in the tower prison.

While in prison, Raleigh decided to seek financing for the building and fitting-out the ship Destiny. This ship was to be the flagship of a projected expedition to seize the silver-mines of Guiana and found a British commercial empire in the Spanish Main. He was finally released from the prison tower in March 1616. Raleigh was forced to raise some £ 15,000 of private money...Lady Raleigh contributing £2,500 from the sale of an inherited property*. Walter Raleigh Jr., as hot-headed as his father, captained the Destiny on the voyage, and met a tragic end leading the assault, shouting "Come on, my hearts! This is the mine you must expect! They that look for any other mine are fools!"

*Receipt for £600 "in part of payment of a som for a certeyne tenemet wth th'appurtenances lyinge ... in the countye of Surrey...".

John Dillinger The First "Public Enemy #1" 1924

Today, John Dillinger's name remains among the most storied in the annals of American crime, and for good reason. In the 1930's, Dillinger and his gang began a reign of terror throughout the mid-West, prompting FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover to label him the nation's very first Public Enemy Number One. It was not his crimes alone, however, that defined his legend. But as well, it's the way he so flagrantly flaunted the law. On two separate occasions, when he was low on guns and ammunition, Dillinger and his gang replenished their supplies by robbing a police station.

"Statement of Inmate Upon Arrival at Institution"

"Scarface" Al Capone -- Most Notorious Criminal Nov 5, 1931

The Prohibition Era gave rise to many notorious criminals, but none so infamous as Chicago¹s underworld boss, "Scarface" Al Capone. Capone differed from his fellow bootleggers and racketeers by the duality of his personality, and it was that unique dichotomy which has rendered his name and image as recognizable today as it was some 75 years ago. He was, on the one hand, a brutal and vicious criminal (responsible for the murders of hundreds of men) and one who ruled his nefarious empire with an iron hand.

His Original Prison Inmate Record -- Alfred Dreyfus - (1859-1935)

French army officer who¹s trial for treason deeply marked the political and social history of France.

Written at the very moment of his deportation to Devil's Island.....Pleading for help.

"I have been condemned for the most infamous crime which a soldier could commit and I am innocent!"

This description is also covered in a separate brochure entitled, The Dreyfus affair.

Alfred Dreyfus was born on October 19, 1859. In 1882, he went to the Ecole Polytechnique and entered into a military career. Seven years later, he had attained the rank of captain. In 1893, he was sent to the ministry of war as a member of the general staff.

While there, he fell under suspicion of being the author of a letter, known as the bordereau , which contained evidence of a betrayal of military information to Germany. A month later, Dreyfus was arrested by the military authorities and accused of high treason. The court martial, which heard the case in secret in December 1894, found him guilty and condemned him to public degradation and to deportation for life. He was sent to Devil's Island, Guiana, where he was to spend nearly five years.

Although Dreyfus denied his guilt, public opinion and the French press, led by its extremely anti-Semitic faction, welcomed the verdict and the sentence. Doubts, however, began to grow. Evidence was found that a Major Esterhazy, was engaged in espionage, and it was his handwriting on the bordereau. Bitterly resisted by the anti-Semitic press, the agitation for reconsideration of the case began to attract wider attention. The "Dreyfus case" began to rank as a major political issue.

The affair was complicated by the activities of Esterhazy who suppressed pertinent documents and began forging new ones. When Esterhazy was brought before a court martial he was acquitted. This precipitated an historic event. The novelist, Emile Zola had published several open letters calling for justice. The last of these was published immediately after the acquittal, under the headline "J'Accuse." By the evening of that day more than 200,000 copies had been sold. Zola accused the court martial of acquitting Esterhazy on the orders of the ministry of war. He challenged the authorities to prosecute him. Zola was brought to trial, found guilty, and sentenced to a year's imprisonment. But it was too late, the issue had become a political cause. In August 1899, Dreyfus was brought back from Devil's Island for retrial. It pronounced him guilty, but he was pardoned and the order of degradation canceled. Dreyfus accepted the act of clemency, but reserved the right to do all in his power to establish his innocence. In July 1906, the united appeals court annulled the verdict, Parliament passed a bill reinstating Dreyfus, and on July 22 he was formally reinstated and decorated with the Legion of Honor.

Friday, July 25, 2008

56 year old spews filthy pollution - poisons landscape

The whole plant's taxes are less than a third of what the CEO receives in "salary".

Three dead workers...

but read the whole story:

Power plant opponents speak up at SATV forum

By Kris Olson/kolson@cnc.com

Thu Jul 24, 2008, 11:00 PM EDT

Photo by Kristin D'AgostinoSalem has settled on a tax agreement with Dominion, owner of the Salem Harbor Power Station.

By Kristin D'Agostino

Salem has settled on a tax agreement with Dominion, owner of the Salem Harbor Power Station.

Salem -

Expecting the worst from its sit-down with the owners of the Salem Harbor power station Thursday, members of the Salem Alliance for the Environment (SAFE) got an early start in going on the offensive Monday, taping a one-hour forum on SATV Channel 3.

The show was set to be rebroadcast on SATV’s channel 3 on Thursday, July 24 at 3 p.m. and Saturday, July 26 at 4:30 p.m. and will also be shown later in the summer. Check www.satvonline.org for the schedule.

In 2001, the state passed landmark air-emissions regulations, and the state later ruled the owners of the Salem plant would have until 2004 to comply. But in 2003, the plant owners, citing the expense of upgrades, negotiated a deal in which it would exchange credits for reducing some pollutants earlier than necessary for more time to upgrade the plant.

With that “consent order” set to expire Thursday, July 24, Dominion, which took control of the plant in 2005, was set to appear at the DEP’s Wilmington offices to announce how it will proceed, where representatives of the other parties to the consent order, including HealthLink, Clean Water Action and the city of Salem, will be listening carefully. (For details about the meeting, read the note at the end of this article and look for a story on the afternoon of Friday, July 25, on the homepage, wickedlocalsalem.com.)

SAFE member Pat Gozemba moderated Monday’s show, entitled “Dominion Over All.” The five panelists had unique but equally negative perspectives on Dominion, the Richmond, Va.-based owner of the Salem power plant.

Gozemba lives in the Willows area, where the power plant, which sits on a 65-acre site, dwarfs the neighborhood. Gozemba displayed a graphic that showed just how much taller the plant’s 400-foot stacks are than the average three-story home. Not only is the plant big, but also it is old, explained Gozemba. At 56, it is well past its expected 30-year life.

Gozemba first turned the floor over to her SAFE colleagues Marjorie Kelly and Shelley Alpern.

Questioning a company

Kelly, who has written articles on business ethics, focused on Dominion’s corporate behavior and decision-making. Many remember Dominion cutting 25 percent of the plant’s jobs and last year’s explosion that killed three people. But Kelly noted that Dominion’s tax payments to the city of Salem have been on a steady decline, from $9 million in 1997 to $4.75 in the last fiscal year. Over the same time period, the average Salem homeowner has seen his tax bill increase by 90 percent.

Last year, Dominion took in $16 billion in revenue and turned a $2.5 billion profit, an estimated 3 percent of which can be attributed to the Salem plant, according to Kelly. Rather than investing that profit in new technologies, like a wind farm, as some power companies have done, Dominion paid $5.8 billion in 2007 to buy back its own stock, which she called a “one-time paper maneuver” to drive up its stock price.

Of the $19 million in profits attributable to the Salem power plant, the company devoted less than one-tenth of 1 percent of that amount to charitable contributions, far less than the typical company (1 percent) or generous company (5 percent) will give away, according to Kelly.

Kelly laid responsibility for the company’s choices at the feet of CEO Thomas Farrell, whom she claimed last year earned $15 million, or four times what the company pays the city of Salem in taxes.

The global warming debate

In light of the state passing landmark air-emissions regulations in 2001, the plant has made some dramatic reductions, such as with SO2, but it still one of the “Filthy Five” largest polluters in the state. She quote from a 2000 Harvard School of Public Health Study, which attributed 53 premature deaths, 14,400 asthma attacks and over 600 emergency-room visits to power-plant pollution.

She then displayed slides showing what the impact of rises of 6 and 10 meters in sea level — one of the possible impacts attributed to have global warming — would have on Salem. The latter, she said ironically, would engulf a wide swath of the city, including the power plant itself.

She noted that, given the cost of operation, coal plants are becoming dinosaurs, with plans to construct 59 coal plants cancelled in the U.S. last year.

Her ultimate position: that the plant should “run on gas, not coal, and if it cannot run on gas, it should not run at all.”

The stage was then turned over to Dave Dionne of Somerset, a founding member of the Massachusetts Clean Air Coalition. He explained that the Fall River area lives in the shadow of two power plants, a smaller one that has just converted to “coal gasification” and a larger one operated by Dominion, which he described as the “largest polluter east of the Mississippi River.”

Dionne discussed the power-plant industries two “big lies.” The first resulted from the large investment the plants made in “pseudoscience,” trying to debunk the idea that they were contributing to climate change. Now that that lie has been “exposed,” said Dionne, they have move on to a new lie: that the coal-gasification process is both cleaner and safer. As part of this process, the plants plan to “sequester” their CO2 emissions and bury them underground forever. But Dionne said that idea was impractical, especially in New England. He noted that company officials admitted in a public hearing that the region lacks the “geographical features” that would make CO2 sequestration possible.

He said he would rather see the plants invest in renewable energy.

Perspectives from the South — and South America

The first of two excerpts from Michael O’Connell’s documentary “Mountain Top Removal,” named for the method of coal mining in Southern Appalachia, was then played. The film took the top prize at this year’s Nashville Film Festival, where an emotional Al Gore made the presentation to the Pittsboro, N.C., filmmaker.

The broadcast was then turned over to two people intimately familiar with the subject of O’Connell’s file. Helen Lewis now lives in Georgia, but for 50 years she lived and taught in Virginia, West Virginia and Kentucky. Throughout that long history, she has seen the coal industry view miners and employees as a “hindrance” to operations, caring more about providing for its stockholders and “leaving behind destruction and pollution… children with respiratory problems and disabled workers.”

Salem Harbor Station is responsible for 53 premature deaths, 570 emergency room visits, and 14,400 asthma attacks every year, according to a 2000 study by the Harvard School of Public Health.

She said that communities have been organizing and fighting the coal industry for over 100 years, not just over safety issues but the destruction of land and water also. She echoed calls to move away from coal, a “limited resource [that is] soon to be gone” to a “new, sustainable commodity,” like wind.

Another segment from O’Connell’s film was played, which attributed 40 percent of the world’s CO2 emissions to coal-fired plants, noting that it is a “global problem,” with coal use on the rise in China and India and 850 additional coal plants planned or being built worldwide.

Frank Taylor, who lives on the Clinch River in the Southern Appalachian region of Virginia, then described his battle against Dominion’s plans to build a new coal plant in nearby St. Paul. He talked about how a fog settles in over the area overnight, which, when combined with the proposed plants smokestacks would deliver a “toxic mix to every man, woman and child” in the area.

He fears a failure of the coal-ash landfill on the site would taint with mercury the Clinch River, a breeding ground for a rare type of mussel and where many people fish.

He challenged one and all to get involved with the move toward renewable energy, saying we have been “complicit” too long in “hurting ourselves and hurting the planet as well.”

Salem State professor Avi Chomsky then broadened the discussion further, talking about how Dominion and other companies get the coal they burn from remote regions of Colombia, where the indigenous people seemingly inevitably suffer when the big corporations set their eyes on their land. One such place, said Chomsky, is the village of Taboco, which dated back to the late 18th-century but was bulldozed in August 2001.

While coal mining in the U.S. is not even safe, Colombian coal miners have to face additional dangers, said Chomsky, including paramilitary groups who in one village had assassinated six union leaders. Chomsky said she has reached out to Dominion and offered to lead tours of the Colombian mines, but that is something the company “hasn’t been very interested in doing.” She noted, however, Salem has “opened its arms and hearts” to the people of Colombia, with the City Council passing a resolution pledging solidarity with the Colombian mine workers, which Chomsky personally delivered to Colombia in 2006.

Looking for alternatives

During the commentary period that followed, Salem resident Lisa Abbate, who operates the Web site www.visionforsalem.org, said she would prefer to see Dominion “vacate the premises very soon,” noting that there are redevelopment opportunities for the plant site detailed at her Web site that would bring in “far more in revenue and jobs” to the city.

Dionne said the government has, for too long, bailed out the coal plants, as it has with other industries, subsidizing the operation of so-called “Reliability Must Run” plants. (Previous speakers noted that the plant’s prolonged post-explosion shutdown might provide convincing evidence that the Salem plant should lose its “Must Run” status — and $25 million in reimbursements —when ISO New England reevaluates the situation in September.) He said that movement must be made toward a “post-carbon economic future.”

He said residents could not wait for politicians to take the lead, since they know taking “striking positions” can put reelection in jeopardy.

“It’s incumbent on us to push the envelope,” he said.

He joked that he keeps wishing for Sen. Ted Kennedy, an opponent of the Cape Wind project, to come out of one of his surgeries having had an epiphany about wind power.

“We need to get beyond all this NIMBY (Not In My Backyard) stuff,” he said. “I call [wind turbines] ‘anti-asthma machines.’ I think they are beautiful.”

Interested in the power plant? Power plant owner Dominion was set to sit down with the state Department of Environmental Protection and other interested parties Thursday, July 24 to discuss plans for the future.

Despite recent rumors, city and state officials have told the Gazette Dominion has no plans to close its doors. The meeting is expected to address how the company will continue to meet new emissions regulations while remaining economically viable.

The meeting is closed to the press and the public, but look for a story from the Gazette on Friday, here at www.wickedlocalsalem.com

Salem residents and workers are still reeling from the tragic industrial accident that killed three workers at the Salem Harbor Power Station on Nov. 6.

All this week funerals have been held for the three victims, Mathew Indeglia, Mark Mansfield and Phillip Robinson, who had been working on a fan when a pipe burst some 20 feet above them, releasing high-pressure, high-temperature steam.

"All three men passed away," said hospital spokeswoman Christina Jeffrey.

The workers suffered burns to their heads, arms and hands when an external water tube on a coal boiler ruptured at about 8:50 a.m. on Tuesday.

The family of Indeglia, 20, issued a statement Wednesday.

"We are deeply saddened by this unfortunate accident which took the life of our beloved Matthew," the family wrote. "We have been blessed to have had such a beautiful young man in our lives. His greatest quality was the unwavering love that he bestowed on his entire family."

The power plant also issued a statement.

"All of Dominion is greatly saddened at the deaths of these men," said Thomas Farrell II, chairman and chief executive officer of Dominion, the Virginia energy company that bought the power plant three years ago. "They were valuable members of the Salem Harbor family. Our thoughts and prayers are with their families."

The power plant has been shut down today "so that the station can focus on the needs of its employees and a full safety review can occur," the company said in a statement.The cause and exact location of the tube rupture is not known, the company said.Please see Thursday's edition of The Salem News for more on the deadly explosion.

Three workers seriously burned in power plant explosion

Julie Manganis, The Salem NewsNovember 7, 2007

— SALEM -- Three workers were seriously injured when a pipe carrying pressurized steam and hot water burst at the Salem Harbor Station power plant yesterday morning.The explosion occurred just before 9 a.m. on the outside of what is known as coal boiler No. 3, sending 320-degree steam and debris into the area where three employees were working, Salem fire Capt. Alan Dionne said.

The injured workers are Mark Mansfield, 41, of 24 Elm St., Peabody; Phillip Robinson, 56, of 16 Robb Road, Beverly; and Matthew Indeglia, 20, of 12 Pere Marquette, Lawrence, according to police.The workers suffered severe burns to their faces, heads, necks and hands, Dionne said. All three were taken to local hospitals and then transferred to Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, where Mansfield and Robinson were listed in critical condition last night. The hospital did not give a condition update on Indeglia.

Firefighters had originally hoped to fly two of the men by medical helicopter, but the chopper was grounded by bad weather, Salem police Capt. Paul Tucker said.Gary Courts, managing director for plant owner Dominion New England, said company officials were with the employees' families at the hospital.

"Our hearts and our prayers go out to our co-workers at this difficult time," Courts said during a press briefing yesterday afternoon.

It is not clear why the pipe, or external water tube, failed. By late afternoon, inspectors still had not entered the area where the explosion occurred, Courts said, because of concerns about the possible presence of asbestos or other hazards. He said there was no danger to people or property nearby.Most of the plant's approximately 145 workers were sent home by 10:30 a.m. Courts said a skeleton crew of essential employees kept the rest of the plant operating yesterday.The 745-megawatt Salem Harbor Station has four boilers. Three coal boilers were in operation at the time of the accident, and two of them continued to run afterward. A large oil-fired boiler was not in use.

Agencies investigating

Police set up a barricade across the plant's main entrance and allowed only public safety and plant officials through.

Along with plant officials, the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the state fire marshal's office and the Salem Fire Department will be among those trying to determine the cause of the accident. The Department of Environmental Protection also was on the scene.The pipe that burst was carrying steam of at least 320 degrees, at a pressure of 1,800 to 2,000 pounds per square inch, Dionne and Courts said.

Power plants use what is known as "superheated" steam to run their turbines, which generate electricity. The higher the temperature of the steam, the more efficiently the plant operates, according to information from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

The Salem plant was built in 1951 and expanded in 1958 with the addition of boiler No. 3, where yesterday's explosion occurred. Salem Harbor Station can generate enough electricity to power about 750,000 homes.

Salem fire officials said there is no history of problems with the power plant, citing records for the past five years that showed no accidents, fires or other safety incidents, other than a minor steam leak in 2003.

Of the 19 Fire Department calls to the plant in the past five years, eight were for ambulances for sick or injured workers, and 10 were for fire alarms that turned out to be false or for unusual odors in the plant.

"It is our opinion and belief this plant is run very safely," Dionne said.

OSHA has investigated two incidents at the plant over the past seven years, both of which were minor, according to a spokesman for the federal agency.

Salem firefighters have been working with Dominion as they train a team of firefighters in confined space rescues, Dionne said. The team is being trained to conduct various types of rescues, not only from the power plant but at other facilities where workers could become trapped or stranded.Firefighters were at the plant on Monday but were not training inside the boiler area where the explosion occurred, Dionne said.

Courts said he is "very proud" of Dominion's record. He said the plant conducts regular training and daily safety briefings. The boilers are also inspected annually.

Mayor Kim Driscoll visited the plant for about half an hour just after noon. State Rep. John Keenan also came to the scene and expressed confidence in the plant's safety record.A handful of neighborhood residents and at least two wives of plant workers came to the scene yesterday morning after learning about the incident.

Estelle Coan of Peabody got a call from a friend who saw news reports yesterday morning. She raced down to the plant to make sure her husband was not among the injured after she was unable to reach him on his cell phone.

She was "extremely relieved," she said, to learn that he was safe.Staff writer Tom Dalton contributed to this article.

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

How AKAMAI works ... details of secret technology

rescued from http://web.archive.org/web/20030302122757/http://www.cs.washington.edu/homes/ratul/akamai.html

Here are my conjectures on how Akamai works. These are based on some experiments done on April 4th, 2000 using mainly "dig". These were conducted from some machines at UW and one at MIT.

1. What an Akamaized page looks like?

Suppose you enter www.cnn.com in your browser. This fetches the index.html file from the cnn server. In that file there will be images which will be pointing to the Akamai servers. Those URLs look like

The number after "a", I think, identifies the customer. So 388 is cnn, 1380 is jcpenny and 620 is computer.com. Note that it is crucial to have different machine name for each customer as will become clear later.

I am not sure what 7 stands for but it was present in almost of the Akamaized URLs I saw.

Next is again the customer identifier.

What the following two identifiers (21 and fade2068e7503e for cnn) represent is not fully clear. A plausible explanation (courtesy Neal Cardwell) is that the 14 digit hex strings are checksums of the content that path refers to. That way the name always changes if the content changes so the akamai caches at the edge don't have to worry about consistency or freshness.

* update (courtesy John Jacob): The hex string is created using "md5sum [file_name] | cut -c3-16". It can also be replaced by a cache time-to -live value like "1d" for one day, and "15m" for 15 mins.

Next is the customer url itself. The path after that is identical to the path on the customer machine. So the above jcpenny URL and "www1.jcpenney.com/images/homepagev4/homepage/catalog.gif" lead to the same gif.

Getting a web site in the above form is not too tough either. Akamai has a simple tool, Free Flow Launcher, for its customers that they use to Akamaize their pages. The users will specify what content they want to be served through Akamai and the tool will go ahead and Akamaize the URLs. This way the customers still have complete control of what gets served through Akamai and what they still are in charge of. Typicall all the dynamic content and stuff like transactions and cookies are taken by of by the customer's server only. Now the customer is responsible only for the content he choses to server himself and first few hits of other content till the Akamai caches warm up.

2. DNS Black Magic

I do not know the DNS system inside out, so the information here could be incomplete or simply wrong. Believe it at your own risk. Below is the chronology of steps that happen when an object from an Akamai server is to be fetched.

Step 1

From the top level domain you first get the name server of akamaitech.net domain. Interesting things happen here itself. There are 8 name servers reported z[A-H].akamaitech.net This information obtained is good on the scale of days.

Lewin, a graduate of MIT and Israel's Technion, lived with his wife, Anne, and two sons, Eitan and Itamar, in Brookline, Mass., where he helped run Akamai Technologies -- which he co-founded, nearly becoming a billionaire in the dot-com stock boom. He previously worked for IBM's research lab in Haifa, Israel. His parents and brothers all live in Israel.

Daniel Lewin of Akamai. Before founding Akamai, Lewin was a captain in Sayeret Matkal, a top-secret Israeli anti-terroristunit.

In the OFFICIAL FAIRY TALE of Flight 11 (which did not exist!), Lewin was seated one row behind two of the hijackers and one row in front of one other hijacker. What are the odds that an Israeli anti-terrorism soldier would be sitting near all of these hijackers?

Akamai Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: AKAM) is a company that provides a distributed computing platform for global Internet content and application delivery, headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The company was founded in 1998 by then-MIT graduate student Daniel Lewin, along with MIT Applied Mathematics professor Tom Leighton and MIT Sloan School of Management students Jonathan Seelig and Preetish Nijhawan. Leighton still serves as Akamai's Chief Scientist, while Lewin was killed aboard American Airlines flight 11 which was crashed in the September 11, 2001 attacks. Akamai is a Hawaiian word meaning smart or intelligent.

Akamai transparently mirrors content (usually media objects such as audio, graphics, animation, video) stored on customer servers. Though the domain name (but not the subdomain) is the same, the IP address points to an Akamai server rather than the customer's server. The Akamai server is automatically picked depending on the type of content and the user's network location.

In addition to image caching, Akamai provides services which accelerate dynamic and personalized content, J2EE-compliant applications, and streaming media to the extent that such services frame a localized perspective.

As of 2008, Akamai started to release a quarterly "State of the Internet" report, where they present data and trends regarding traffic and bandwidth adoption. Their first report gathered information about 125 countries.[1]

Akamai's customers include many large internet, media and computer companies including the BBC.[2]

Arabic news network Al-Jazeera was a customer from 28 March 2003 until 2 April 2003, when Akamai decided to end the relationship.[3] The network's English-language managing editor claimed this was due to political pressure.

In March 2005, Akamai signed an agreement to acquire Speedera Networks for 12 million shares of Akamai common stock, valued at $130 million at that time.[5] Both companies also agreed to halt pending lawsuits involving trade secrets and patent infringement.[6] The acquisition was completed in June 2005.[7]

On April 12, 2007 Akamai acquired Red Swoosh in exchange for 350,000 shares of Akamai common stock.[8] The acquisition of Red Swoosh was valued at approximately $15 million, net of cash acquired.

Saturday, July 12, 2008

Tesla Coil - New Zealand

They're fairly straightforward coils, secondary form is 24"x105", toroidis 11"x55". These dimensions are 1:12 scale of the 12-story NLL design.These prototype coils are used mainly to test design concepts for theNLL coils. The primary drive is the conventional C-switch-L scheme,with IGBT's in place of a spark gap for improved efficiency and control.The primary operates at 3kV, 4.5kA. Currently, the system can producean 18ft point-to-point arc with about 6kW input power. Although theprototype operates from either single or three-phase power forconvenience of demonstration, the final NLL design will use a dedicated

At a cost of $5 million and with a proposed construction time of 22 months, it's no small endeavor. It would be the first machine in history to manufacture nearly full-scale lightning.

Tesla coil no. 2 (Electrum Project; commissioned by a rich New Zealand farmer to be installed on his estate): "That one's thirty-eight feet. We took turns riding in the Electrum [toroid] while the machine was on. It's finished; it's in his backyard. His house is out on the harbor, and the control panel for it is on his rear deck. For twenty-five years he's been looking for someone to make a big lightning piece for him, something that would throw lightning about fifty feet. The Electrum can reach about fifty feet; the deck is about seventy feet away. He had Power New Zealand install a substation right next to it. This guy's got money."

GREG LEYH:From 1997 - 1998, he was theprincipal engineer for The Electrum Project and, in conjunction withsculptor Eric Orr, created the world's largest existing Tesla Coil, now on a sculpture farm outside Auckland, New Zealand.

low, whirring sounds began to emit from the base of the coil as the generators kicked into speed. a few kids ran to the front of the crowd holding neon tubes up towards the sphere. the tubes glowed faintly as electricity scrambled through the atmosphere and the smell of ozone filled the air.

we all stood mesmerized as we watched huge, gigantic bolts of electricity fling themselves out from the surface of the sphere and immense fingers of purplish-blue reached out to the grounding lamppost off to the right. the column from the center of the coil blasted out hurricanes of air as generators spun themselves into a mach 1 frenzy. greg stood inside the sphere of the tesla coil with a metal probe, taking more measurements and logging the results. as i watched this behemoth of electricity and the man inside, i was only sure of one thing... this guy must be abso-fucking-lutely insane.

the lightning continued for about five minutes until the operator powered the generators back down. finally, the noise and the ozone and the light subsided to a point when everyone could snap out of their tesla-induced hypnosis. still alive inside the sphere, greg used his bullhorn to explain the concept of the faraday cage.

----------From: Chuck Curran [SMTP:ccurran-at-execpc-dot-com]Sent: Monday, June 01, 1998 7:58 PMTo: Tesla ListSubject: Re: Closure of the Electrum ProjectGreg:Thanks for posting the shots of your project. That is a very impressiveproject and some great photo's. Way in the back ground it appears thatseveral of those 60 million sheep are running like crazy, away from thecoil!Chucknzgapmove>---------->From: Greg Leyh [SMTP:lod-at-pacbell-dot-net]>Sent: Saturday, May 30, 1998 4:30 PM>To: Tesla List>Subject: Closure of the Electrum Project>>Hi All,>>Here's a summary of the final installation effort at the NZ site.>>First off NZ is a cool place, a country of 3 million inventors>and 60 million sheep. I don't recall meeting a single person>there that I would have considered dull, except perhaps at the>customs offices. It is now clear to me as to why NZ is so well>represented on the TC list.>>Our only major problem was getting the 40' shipping container>through Customs -- we were declaring the contents as a sculpture>(12.5% tax), however the customs official said that in searching>the container, no sculpture was found, only electrical switchgear>and equipment (32.5% tax).>The container was cleared after 6 days of tense negotiations.>>The install went without a hitch, using a team of highly adept>farm workers and digger operators to erect the tower and>install the switchgear virtually on the side of a cliff!>>Tuning values for coil onsite came very close to the Hunters Point>numbers, about 37.9kHz. The Q of the sec (without breakout) was>about the same as well, maybe slightly better than SF, indicating>that the re-bar in the concrete vault walls produce no significant>current loops.>>The earth grounding array worked better than expected, with a>measured ground resistance of only 0.44 ohm! This may be due>in part to the fact that ground array elements inadvertently>cut through an array of septic tank irrigation lines.>>The coil is able to digest the 400V 50Hz from the substation>with no apparent ill effects. However, the video camera monitor>for the central manway picks up too much 50Hz noise during operation,>trashing the sync pulses. Shielding a CCD camera placed in the>manway may prove to be difficult.>>Occasional strikes to the ground during operation were observed when>the wind was right. I had not expected ground strikes from this coil>at all, due to the spherical electrode and the fact that the base of>the secondary starts 14 feet above ground level! Improved quenching>due to increasing the effective gap spacing may be responsible. The>tungsten is also consumed at a quicker rate with wider gap spacing,>but it's worth it!>Neither sheep, yaks, nor storks approve of the coil during operation.>One kiwi couple also joined the "2 Million Volt Club", as well!>>I don't have pix of operation in NZ as of yet, though it looks just>like operation in SF with a different backdrop. One person shot>some PAL footage there, and we're trying to get a copy (I still>don't own a video camera!)>>New pictures of the install effort can be found at:>http://www.lod-dot-org/electrum/nzinstall.html>>>-GL>www.lod-dot-org

Jan 30, 2008 – Washington DC, USA - In two appearances on a Washington DC Pacifica Radio Station (14th and 18th January 2008), WPFW, on a show hosted by Author and Political Commentator Ambrose I. Lane, Sr., Dr. Judy Wood, a former Professor of Mechanical Engineering, and John Hutchison, experimental scientist, discussed how photographic and video evidence suggest that the World Trade Centre (WTC) towers were destroyed using Directed Energy Weapons (DEW). Many of the observed effects resemble those seen in John Hutchison’s experiments.

In early January 2008, Wood posted a new study on her website (http://drjudywood.com/articles/JJ), which relates effects seen in photographs taken before, during and after the destruction of the WTC complex, to effects seen in Hutchison’s ongoing experiments. Wood and Hutchison co-authored the study.

John Hutchison is a Canadian inventor and experimental scientist who has been working with “field effects” for almost 30 years. The Hutchison Effect is a collection of phenomena discovered accidentally by John Hutchison in 1979 during attempts to reproduce the work of Nikola Tesla. Hutchison uses radio frequency and electrostatic sources. The Hutchison Effect occurs in a volume of space where the beams intersect and interfere. The results are levitation of heavy objects, fusion of dissimilar materials such as metal and wood, anomalous melting (without heating) of metals without burning adjacent material, spontaneous fracturing of metals (which separate by sliding in a sideways fashion), and both temporary and permanent changes in the crystalline structure and physical properties of metal samples.

Hutchison has reproduced his experiments many times and the results are recorded on video and have been included in a number of TV documentaries that focus on unusual scientific experiments. Hutchison’s metal samples have been repeatedly tested by scientists, including a group at the Max Planck Institute in Germany, confirming Hutchison Effects.

The article by Wood and Hutchison (http://drjudywood.com/articles/JJ) documents effects and events seen in the vicinity of the World Trade Centre and compares these with observed characteristics of the Hutchison Effect.

The observed effects include:

“Weird Fires” - The fires seen near the badly damaged cars do not seem to ignite nearby office paper. Some photos show firefighters walking very close to or even through the fires. A video by John Hutchison shows similar looking “fires” on a model metal boat.

Bent Beams and “Jellification” - Samples that Hutchison produced show very unusual effects on metal. Sometimes the metal “jellifies,” turning soft and losing form, leading to severe bending or fracturing of the sample. Sometimes samples erupt from the centre and sometimes they turn to dust, similar to what happened to the WTC on 9/11.

Ongoing reactions - Hutchison’s samples often show an ongoing reaction, even after the energy field is removed. This “non-self-quenching” reaction seems to occur at the nuclear level. This also appears to be happening at Ground Zero (GZ). Dr. Wood’s study suggests that the WTC site is still being “decontaminated,” with trucks moving dirt into and out of the site, while “hosing down operations” continue, which Dr. Wood and Andrew Johnson photographed and recorded on video in January 2008.

Transmutation - Sometimes materials subjected to the Hutchison Effect seem to change at a molecular or even atomic level. This could be the explanation for the apparent rapid rusting at GZ, where steel rusts like iron. Also, some photographs show unusual effects on the aluminium cladding used on the twin towers that look similar to effects produced on Hutchison’s aluminum samples.

Wood, Hutchison, and Johnson appeared on two Ambrose Lane shows, “We Ourselves,” and discussed the similarities between the WTC event and the experimental evidence produced by the Hutchison Effect. “I have been collecting data over the last year and a half or so and I have found these distinct and unusual characteristics, which I have given names such as ‘fuming’ and ‘toasted’ cars – I have even noticed flipped cars in some pictures,” said Wood. “In some cases, the flipped cars are sitting next to trees that are fully covered with leaves.”

“If the flipping of the cars was caused by big explosions or ‘wind’ from the towers coming down,” asked Johnson, “how did the leaves stay on the trees?” Material scientist George Hathaway observes that the Hutchison Effect causes either lift or disruption of the material itself. Lift explains the flipped cars. (http://drjudywood.com/pdf/HutchisonEffectReport_txt.pdf )

Asked about ongoing dirt removal and hosing down at the WTC complex, Hutchison commented, “I think there is an ongoing reaction or ‘infection.’” Wood noted that the damage done to the Bankers Trust (Deutsche Bank) building was repaired, but then they decided to take the building down. This evidence indicates there is a continuing reaction there. Rusting beams in the Bankers Trust building and in the temporary PATH train station also suggest ongoing reactions too.

At the end of the first show, a caller said, “This is a revelation beyond revelations…this trumps everything…If this story ever gets out, it will change the course of the United States’ and the whole world’s history.”

Another caller said during the second show, “I am thinking that these revelations we are hearing this morning should have the people so excited and so outraged that they should be flooding the lines to their congressmen and news people to get this message out as the number one story of the year.”

Wednesday, July 09, 2008

JAZZ is the opportunity it gives a musician to be himself

The interim report filed by the investigator from the coroner's bureau listed him as a black male, 5ft 7in tall, weighing 135lb. His birth date, 3 March 1929, made him 64 years old. He had died at 1.30am on 5 June 1993 at the Marina Convalescent Hospital, 3201 Fernside Boulevard, Alameda, California. The death certificate, filed at the county records office in Oakland, 25 miles away, specified cardiac arrest and a history of generalised arteriosclerosis and diabetes. He had a social security number: 448-18-5547. Place of birth: unknown. Parents' names: unknown. Marital status: unknown. Education: unknown. Occupation: unknown. His only possession was a 19in colour television set. There was no mention of a trumpet.

The TV had gone with him to the hospital from the nursing home in which he had lived for the preceding six months. The owner of the home, when she was contacted by the coroner's bureau investigator, said that the dead man had left no cash, stocks, trusts or other material effects. The body had been taken to a mortuary. There was no one to pay for a funeral, so on 1 July a cremation took place at the state's expense and the ashes were placed in a community crypt. His full name was Dupree Ira Lewis Bolton, although his surname was misspelt "Bolten" on all the official records relating to his death. He was also known, according to police records in two states, as Lewis Bolton, Lewis Dupree, Louis Dupree Balton, Walter Williams Jr, and Walter Jamil Glasby. There were scars on his back, his left arm, his abdomen and his left leg.

his sound was strong and brilliant, his attack swift and bright. The notes swarmed out of his horn, impatient to be heard, slanting back and forth across the chords and vaulting the bar lines. He tended to come out of the gate already moving through the music at full speed, as if he thought there was no time to waste, but he knew the value of a moment's unexpected silence, and he could stroke a ballad with an old-fashioned elegance while probing beneath its surface. Even under the fiercest pressure, weaving through complex chord sequences at the highest tempo, his phrases were unfolded with a confidence that seems strangely chilling now. He died with nothing, with no family or friends on hand to mourn him, without even an authentic identity. Yet to listen to his music today is to hear the sound of exhilaration, of transcendence, of beauty imagined into life.

The kind of jazz he played was called bebop, a music of blinding speed, jolting abruptness and oblique angles. The inventors of bebop - Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie and Thelonious Monk - gloried in their rejection of the normal rules of entertainment. The complexity of the music was intended to be a trap for the unready. Dupree Bolton mastered its codes, but he brought to it an unusual directness and an emotional heat that you couldn't miss.

I was 16, and starting to learn about jazz, when I first heard of him. Listening to this sort of music wasn't a popular hobby for a schoolboy in England at the beginning of the 1960s. A dozen of us had formed a school jazz society, grudgingly permitted to convene at lunchtime once a week in a room in an annexe to the main school building. This seemed particularly appropriate. Jazz was not part of the curriculum of the life that had been planned for us. It wouldn't help us become lawyers or accountants or scientists. It was outcast music. And we liked to think of ourselves as outcasts, too, in a mild sort of way, bound together by our enthusiasm, forced to wear our school blazers and house ties but speaking to each other in our own codes.

We brought in our new records, and sometimes gave solemn little lectures. Using the school record-player, a primitive device encased in a big brown mahogany box to make it look like a piece of respectable furniture, we pieced together the mosaic that jazz, in its first half-century, had already become. We bought the Melody Maker and Disc, which carried news and reviews each week, and eventually I found the only newsagent in my Midlands city that sold Down Beat, the fortnightly American magazine, which was almost like getting the news first-hand. At home I listened on the family's valve radio to Europe 1's Aimez-vous le jazz?, and to the Voice of America's Jazz Hour, with Willis Conover, who announced the records slowly enough for his millions of listeners behind the Iron Curtain to understand. So the music had a sense of discovery, of an introduction to emotional areas that were not a part of the English culture in which I grew up. Modern jazz re-created for us the lure of the exotic and the forbidden that had attracted the first generation of European jazz fans to Louis Armstrong and Jelly Roll Morton. If you enjoyed this, you were already different. But with modern jazz, you really did have to enjoy it. People who were just pretending to like it soon gave up. It was too much trouble, too demanding, too astringent and awkward. That, I suppose, made those who stuck with it feel even better.

I know when it was that I first read about Dupree Bolton because I still have the copy of Down Beat, dated 14 March 1963, containing the first published mention of his name. Bolton was singled out for special praise in a review of a group led by a saxophone player, Curtis Amy, which had appeared in Los Angeles at a place called the It Club. "Thanks mainly to little-known trumpeter Bolton," the piece began, "Amy's current group is about the wildest thing in jazz on the West Coast today." And the first hint of mystery appeared in the next sentence: "Bolton, whose personal troubles kept him from the Los Angeles scene more than two years, returned home last fall. Since joining Amy, he's been turning heads around all over town. His sound is big and honest and sometimes so raw it all but rips a listener's head off."

Half a dozen issues later, he was mentioned again. This time the writer, John Tynan, tried to discover something more about the trumpeter's background. But all Bolton would say was that he had run away from home when he was 14. His reluctance was ascribed to a biography that included "gaols and things". Bolton had needed to "clean up" his personal affairs, but was now ready "to take care of his business, which is partly the business of becoming recognised as one of the most important trumpeters in jazz."

That summer, I bought the only record released by the group, in which Curtis Amy and Dupree Bolton shared the front line. It was called Katanga!, and when I took it home and played it I realised that Tynan hadn't exaggerated. Bolton had written the title track, which opened the album, and he took the first solo, leaping out of the tense, jabbing, up-tempo theme with enormous impact, building his short solo with firm declamatory flourishes and a perfect sense of dramatic contrast.

The very best thing about jazz, really, is the opportunity it gives a musician to be himself, to be an individual. Because improvisation is at its heart, the musician is handed a responsibility which can properly be discharged only by calling on his own resources, his own store of emotional experience. As a result, jazz contains a remarkable number of players who can genuinely claim originality, and the briefest exposure to Katanga! was enough to establish that Dupree Bolton deserved a place among them. This was the sort of performance that defined the arrival of a new star, and the next steps in his career seemed obvious. He would appear with bigger names, he would form his own band, he would get a recording contract of his own. But John Tynan's words in Down Beat had warned that Bolton's career path might not be so straightforward. And for some jazz fans, including me, that only heightened his appeal.

This is a complicated matter that has something to do with the nature of jazz itself. A music based on improvising in public must necessarily have a constant and probably disturbing awareness of its own evanescence. How much great jazz, played in nightclubs, perhaps in front of unsympathetic audiences and without recording equipment, has simply escaped into the ether? That sense of impermanence seemed to influence the lives of its performers, and was exaggerated by the heroin epidemic among young jazz musicians. Many of them were imitating their idols, some of whom, like Charlie Parker, tried to discourage such a destructive homage, although it was hard to persuade young men that Parker's genius had not been fuelled by the drug, or that shooting up was not integral to becoming a fully fledged bebopper. As a result, many of the most gifted musicians of Parker's generation conveyed the impression that, one way or another, they wouldn't necessarily have long in which to say their piece.

Dupree Bolton was definitely in that category, too, and it gave his work a special value, a kind of dark glamour which was only deepened when it became obvious that he would not be following the path to stardom. Katanga! turned out not to be the prologue to a glittering career. Not at all. And his failure to realise that extraordinary promise simply provoked an even greater interest in the few traces left by his passage through life.

What little I knew, from various jazz historians, books and magazines, was this. He had been born in Oklahoma City in 1929, and when he left home it was to join the band of the pianist Jay McShann, who had also provided Charlie Parker with an apprenticeship. McShann was based in Kansas City, which made it likely that Bolton had jumped on ....

SNIP

- Of the five musicians on the session, three were - confirmed junkies. Elmo Hope, a brilliant pianist and - composer, had sent the manuscripts of the scores to - Land from a California prison, where he was completing - a sentence for possession. But it was Frank Butler, the - most gifted drummer on the West Coast, whom Land - remembered as being close to Dupree Bolton. They were - "on the same page in regard to their extra-curricular - activity." - Axelrod approached him. "I said, 'Are you Dupree - Bolton?' He said yes, and I told him who I was. He - grabbed me and hugged me, which was a surprise. His - attitude was very different. He was very friendly, and in - the days when I knew him before he had not been the - friendliest of people. That was his character. I always - thought that even if he hadn't been a junkie, he'd have - been just the same. But he must have changed. The - belligerence had gone. We talked about The Fox. What - else did we have to talk about? We talked about Harold - and Frank and Elmo. And then we said goodbye. He gave - me another hug." <snipped-

- Perhaps, as Amy suggested, he knew his own worth as a - musician. He cannot possibly have imagined how great the - reach of his music would turn out to be. Listening once - again to the few minutes that he left behind almost 40 years - ago makes me think that, for all the sadness and confusion - and waste in this story, for all the disappearances and - disappointments, for all the holes he made in his own life and - those of the people who knew him, the fact that Dupree - Bolton found his self-expression in the language of jazz turned - out, in the end, to be not just my good luck but his, too

full story published in editorial~at~grantamag.co.uk No 69 spring 2000 andTHE INDEPENDENT 16 April 2000

In the same GRANTA Issue there is a even better piece of writing..

The assassin: a story of race and rage in the land of Apartheid by Henk van Woerden (6 December 1947 . 16 November 2005), a Dutch painter and writer with close ties to South Africa.

It is a biography of Dimitri Tsafendas who assassinated South African president Dr Hendrik Verwoerd, in the House of Assembly in 1966, was declared insane, and held in prison until he died in 1999

A Mouthful of Glass by Henk van Woerden (ISBN 1-86207-442-9)

Michaelis was confronted by a dilemma, the child was his first born son, but marriage with Amelia was out of the question.